A New Methodology for Fiscal Visibility of Territorial Government Levels

The size and pattern of any public budget depend, among other factors, on the visibility of both the burdens and benefits of public revenue and expenditure. Furthermore, such visibility is a necessary - not a sufficient - condition for an efficient allocation of resources between the private and public sectors of an economy. Although the importance of this visibility has been well known by academicians and practitioners for a long time, attemps to quantify it by taking the internal structure of every type of revenue or expenditure and its relative financial weight in a fiscal system into consideration are recent, and indicators used till now rest on several structural parameters, each of them ranging from 0 to 1, which are combined in a multiplicative way. For this reason, a 0 estimate will always result if one of such factors is, at least, also 0. Starting from the same parameters, factors, and initial values, an alternative and probably more fruitful way to measure visibility of burdens and benefits of a public budget can consist of combining them in an additive instead of a multiplicative way. Then a null parametric value will not result in a 0 estimate, and calculations can show higher final values which could be much more sensitive to the initial values of other parameters and factors. The aim of this contribution, based on a recent research, is to present and compare new additive indicators to be applied to the several - local, intermediate, central - territorial government levels in the European Union and OECD member countries by using data and qualitative information provided by the International Monetary Fund. Comparisons, conclusions, and comments are offered for general criticism and discussion.

Visibility of Public Budget Burdens and Benefits in New European Union Member Countries

The size and pattern of any public budget depend, among other factors, on the visibility of both the burdens and benefits of public revenue and expenditure. Furthermore, such visibility is a necessary - not a sufficient - condition for an efficient allocation of resources between the private and public sectors of an economy. The aim of this contribution, based on a recent research, is to apply fiscal visibility indicators to territorial government levels of new European Union member countries by using data and new qualitative information provided by the International Monetary Fund to draw relevant policy conclusions. Results obtained are particularly important for present and future European Union member countries aiming to make their respective fiscal systems converge for a better integration process, since significant allocation improvements can be obtained by implementing economic policy changes (public accounting systems, tax systems, public deficit management techniques...) in the new European Union member countries to raise both multiplicative and additive visibility values of public budget burdens and benefits and to bring them near to their optimal values. The proposed methodology, applied to former and new European Union member countries, can also be extended to other OECD economies to check whether the European Union pattern is shared by all developed countries and to design future general economic policies.

Elements for an economic assessment of intermediate territorial levels of government in European countries

Intermediate territorial levels of government in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Spain are quite different regarding their basic institutions, devolved powers, revenue and public expenditure systems, public revenue equalization mechanisms, accountability, public performance management, financial control bodies, etc. In spite of the complexity derived from these different characteristics, the economic operation of such intermediate territorial levels of government can be analyzed, evaluated and compared from both the efficiency and equity viewpoints. >From the theory of fiscal federalism and the analysis and comparisons of the institutional and organization aspects, constitutions and basic laws, budgets, public accounts, etc. of such countries, and taking the European Union integration process into account - with present and future repercussions on powers of central and sub-central territorial levels of government of member countries -, this paper aims: first, to identify the main inefficiency and equity problems posed by each of the different sub-systems for financing the intermediate territorial levels of territorial government in these four countries; second, to present some criteria and useful indicators for assessing the economic operation of such levels of government in a simple, significant and standardized way; third, to advance estimates concerning some economic indicators; fourth, to draw up some conclusions for improving economic efficiency in the allocation of public resources among levels of government and inter-territorial equity. The methodology, solutions and reforms proposed are of general interest for other European countries planning to create or develop their own intermediate territorial levels of government. Keywords: fiscal federalism, intermediate governments.

Plagiarism and self-plagiarism: What every author should know

The scientific community is greatly concerned about the problem of plagiarism and self-plagiarism. In this paper I explore these two transgressions and their various manifestations with a focus on the challenges faced by authors with limited English profi ciency